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PSB Alpha speaker setup for a newbie

1931 Views 4 Replies 3 Participants Last post by Ryan Statz, Oct 13, 2019

ane _81

Discussion Starter · Oct 12, 2019

Hi,

can somebody please help a newbie with basic and initial settings that will mostly be used for home theater (mostly for Netflix DD+)?

I have PSB Alpha stowers T1, B1 (used for surround) and C1 center speaker. Subwoofer is Energy S10.3.

AV receiver is latest Onkyo TX-NR696, TV is LG OLED C9, 65'' (ARC is working perfectly with Onkyo).
Front speakers are bi-amped
Room size is approx 2.6 m width and 5 meters in length.

After initial setup with AccuEQ room calibration speaker crossover was set to 40hz. I changed the settings and put all the speakers to 80hz. Is this OK or should I change surrounds to 100?
LPF to LFE is set to 120Hz. Is this OK?

I'm also don't know how to set-up subwoofer settings. I'm talking about hardware settings of the sub. On the front it has control knob (probably for power) and it's currently set to 12 o'clock (or half).

At the back it has some settings that I don't know how to set:
Currently, crossover of the sub (hardware knob at the back) is set to 60. Is this OK?
I don't know what 'phase' knob is but it is set to 12 0'clock. What is this and is this OK?
There is also a switch X-over mode with A= crossover activated and B=crossover by-passed. If I understand this correctly, hardware knob settings on the back will only work if I choose A (crossover activated).

If I select B then AV receiver will take care about the sub crossover? Correct?
So in my case I should put this on B?

I would appreciate if somebody who understands this very well could check my speakers (PSB Alpha) specs, as well as Energy s10.3 specs and suggest what would be most appropriate settings based on the hardware possibilities and to explain how to set subwoofer settings (hardware and on my AV receiver).

I always think that my settings could be much better is somebody more experienced, who understands this better, would make the initial settings.

Please help!

Thank you in advance.

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Ryan Statz

· #2 · Oct 12, 2019 (Edited)

ane _81 said:
After initial setup with AccuEQ room calibration speaker crossover was set to 40hz. I changed the settings and put all the speakers to 80hz. Is this OK or should I change surrounds to 100?
LPF to LFE is set to 120Hz. Is this OK?

Yes, that is pretty much what everyone sets their speakers at. 80Hz for the towers is where you should probably have it set. The surrounds, I'd do at 100Hz (90Hz at a minimum). The centre I'd do at 90Hz.

ane _81 said:
I'm also don't know how to set-up subwoofer settings. I'm talking about hardware settings of the sub. On the front it has control knob (probably for power) and it's currently set to 12 o'clock (or half).

Assuming that that's the volume/gain, that's fine. You can turn it up or down a bit if you feel there's not enough or too much "oomph."

ane _81 said:
At the back it has some settings that I don't know how to set:
Currently, crossover of the sub (hardware knob at the back) is set to 60. Is this OK?
I don't know what 'phase' knob is but it is set to 12 0'clock. What is this and is this OK?
There is also a switch X-over mode with A= crossover activated and B=crossover by-passed. If I understand this correctly, hardware knob settings on the back will only work if I choose A (crossover activated).

1. Turn the crossover knob all the way to max - because you're letting the AVR determine what frequencies to send to the sub by having the LFE set to 120Hz, turning it to max on the subwoofer eliminates any potential conflict between the two devices. You can lower the LFE setting in the AVR, but doing so might increase the chances of sub localization.
2. Turn/Flip that to 0. You could probably set it to 180 since you just have the one sub, but putting it at 0 is perfectly fine, and what almost everyone does with one subwoofer.
3. Select by-passed, but still have the Frequency knob turned to max.

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gajCA

· #3 · Oct 12, 2019

ane _81 said:
Hi,

can somebody please help a newbie with basic and initial settings that will mostly be used for home theater (mostly for Netflix DD+)?

I have PSB Alpha stowers T1, B1 (used for surround) and C1 center speaker. Subwoofer is Energy S10.3.

AV receiver is latest Onkyo TX-NR696, TV is LG OLED C9, 65'' (ARC is working perfectly with Onkyo).
Front speakers are bi-amped
Room size is approx 2.6 m width and 5 meters in length.

After initial setup with AccuEQ room calibration speaker crossover was set to 40hz. I changed the settings and put all the speakers to 80hz. Is this OK or should I change surrounds to 100?
LPF to LFE is set to 120Hz. Is this OK?

I'm also don't know how to set-up subwoofer settings. I'm talking about hardware settings of the sub. On the front it has control knob (probably for power) and it's currently set to 12 o'clock (or half).

At the back it has some settings that I don't know how to set:
Currently, crossover of the sub (hardware knob at the back) is set to 60. Is this OK?
I don't know what 'phase' knob is but it is set to 12 0'clock. What is this and is this OK?
There is also a switch X-over mode with A= crossover activated and B=crossover by-passed. If I understand this correctly, hardware knob settings on the back will only work if I choose A (crossover activated).

If I select B then AV receiver will take care about the sub crossover? Correct?
So in my case I should put this on B?

I would appreciate if somebody who understands this very well could check my speakers (PSB Alpha) specs, as well as Energy s10.3 specs and suggest what would be most appropriate settings based on the hardware possibilities and to explain how to set subwoofer settings (hardware and on my AV receiver).

I always think that my settings could be much better is somebody more experienced, who understands this better, would make the initial settings.

Please help!

Thank you in advance.

Set the sub to bypass as the receiver will be setting the crossover, not the sub.

Make sure your speakers are all set to "small" if that is an option as "small" simply means "using a sub."

The other stuff Ryan covered well.

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ane _81

Discussion Starter · #4 · Oct 13, 2019

Ryan Statz said:
Yes, that is pretty much what everyone sets their speakers at. 80Hz for the towers is where you should probably have it set. The surrounds, I'd do at 100Hz (90Hz at a minimum). The centre I'd do at 90Hz.

Thank you for you answer, I will make it like you suggested. Just as curiosity and to learn something...why not set all to 80Hz if you have 'capable' speakers? Why center 90hz and surrounds at 100? What's the difference if surrounds are 80 in comparison to 100? I just want to understand what am I doing. Thank you.

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Ryan Statz

· #5 · Oct 13, 2019

ane _81 said:
Thank you for you answer, I will make it like you suggested. Just as curiosity and to learn something...why not set all to 80Hz if you have 'capable' speakers? Why center 90hz and surrounds at 100? What's the difference if surrounds are 80 in comparison to 100? I just want to understand what am I doing. Thank you.

There's nothing preventing you from setting it all to 80Hz across the board - it wouldn't hurt the speakers at all by doing that.

I think it's good practice to give your speakers a 20Hz cushion when setting the crossover as it gives the speaker more breathing room, which in turn will allow the speaker to play things cleaner, clearer, and louder since the speakers wouldn't be working as hard by not having to worry about the lower bass frequencies. I have all of my speakers set to 80Hz only because it's at least a 20Hz cushion across the board. I could, in theory, "safely" set my RTi A3s to 70Hz because they technically go down to 50Hz. When I had the Polk CSi A4, I had it set to 90Hz because its lowest FR spec was 65Hz, and why I would have probably mentioned 90Hz.

80Hz is generally the "set it and forget it" setting, but you can adjust to your own personal taste. If you're that keen, you can take some measurements with REW and a Umik1 to figure out what setting yields the flattest response time, but 80Hz is almost always the ideal setting, especially when it comes to eliminating subwoofer localization. With an 80Hz speaker crossover along with the AVR's subwoofer LFE setting at 120Hz, it creates enough of a blend (usually) to where your ears aren't able to determine where the frequencies produced by the subwoofer are coming from.

Surrounds don't need to produce any real amount of bass (and not a lot of sound even comes out of your surrounds to begin with), so that would be why 100Hz is the typical setting. You can go lower if it sounds better to you to do that.

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